A Third to Half of Americans Still Link
Saddam, 9/11The Enduring Power of Ignorance,
and Need to Fight It by Gary Leupp
www.dissidentvoice.org
September 11, 2006

The
caption of the
angus-reid.com report was “Some
Americans Still Link Hussein to 9/11.” Some, indeed. As of
September 2006, 46% of Americans asked, “Do you think there is a link
between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist attacks?” said yes. 50%
said no, and 4% said they weren’t sure in a poll with a 3.2% margin of
error. In other words, fully half of us link Saddam and the 9/11
attacks. (The poll was taken Sept. 1-5, 2006.)

Of course, it’s all in the wording of
these questions. There might have been a different result had the
pollsters asked, “Do you still think there is a link between Saddam
Hussein and the 9/11 terrorist attacks?” or “Given the fact that no
expert has been able to establish any evidence for an operative
relationship between al-Qaeda and Saddam, and that only people who
never pay attention to the news think that anymore, do you think
personally still think there is a link between Saddam Hussein and the
9/11 terrorist attacks?” (Don’t laugh at the tendentiousness built
into my rewritten questions. The online polls conducted by the cable
networks are often just as skewed.)

Anyway, the just published Angus-Reid
poll asked a second question: Do you think former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks?

This is a significantly different
question. I can see why lots of people would believe there some link
between Saddam and 9-11. I think about how students process
information in history classes as they prepare for exams. (A has
something to do with B. If I remember that, it will help me guess
right.) Any historical synopsis of the five years following 9-11 will
have to note that soon after the al-Qaeda attacks the Bush
administration started preparing to invade Iraq, and that the U.S.
president repeatedly linked 9-11 and the Iraqi president. So in that
sense, yes, there is a link, and any college freshman memorizing for a
U.S. history test some 50 years from now will have reason to link, in
some way, 9-11 and Saddam.

But this second question implicitly asks
about responsibility, about blame. It is depressing to note that 43%
of Americans polled answered in the affirmative, a narrow majority of
52% saying no. (Poll taken Aug. 29-Sept. 2, 2006.) After all the facts
that have come to light, all the exposure that’s been done! You can
just hear the neocons’ sigh of relief at this extraordinary statement
of manipulable ignorance. The power of Fox News!

I do find cause for optimism, though, in
the response to the third question: Do you think Saddam Hussein was
personally involved in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

Here the pollsters remind the respondent
of the details of the 9-11 attacks. Just eight words of elaboration
which, since most of us were thinking adults at the time, shouldn’t
really affect the response much. But they do. When you add these pithy
historical details suddenly the American people -- those polled anyway
-- say, “Wait, nah, that doesn’t make sense. He wasn’t personally
involved in those attacks!”

Just 31% say “yes” to the slightly
elaborated proposition, and 60% say “no”! (Poll taken Aug. 17-21,
before the most recent Senate Intelligence report that again indicates
what those paying attention have believed and argued for a long time
-- that these “links” have been disinformation.) That 31% remains far
too high, a testimony to the power of the (continuing) power of the
Cheney-Rumsfeld neocon cabal hell-bent on regime change in Iran and
Syria and well practiced at the art of deception to make it happen.
It’s testimony to the power of the religious right, the AIPAC lobby,
the politically influential neocon press and the mainstream press that
refuses to really pursue the story of how Bush lied the country into
war. Testimony to the solidarity between the two parties who continue
to uphold the attack on Iraq as a good decent thing -- if maybe
justified initially by some “intelligence mistakes,” or mishandled.

The different responses to the three
Angus-Reid show how easily it is to manipulate people, words and
information. The Straussian neocons planning the next couple
imperialist wars know how easy it is. You can insist upon a link, to
set up a target for attack, and if the press is on your side (as
they’ve been pretty much so far) you can repeat it again and again so
that enough people buy it. Half of the people still see a Saddam-9/11
leak! Lesson is, lying works. And on the other hand, serious
researchers and analysts can blow away the disinformation, gradually
getting their point across in the generally reactionary, always tardy
corporate media. But the lies (for example, the plainly planted psy-ops
story about Iraqi troops killing prematurely born Kuwaiti babies in
1990) tend to get exposed long after they’ve served their purpose.

The Bush administration apparently is
banking on that buttheaded 30 percent to endorse the next stages in
the Terror War chief architect Dick Cheney has declared will continue
way beyond his lifetime. A war against various nations in the Muslim
world (and maybe elsewhere) that George W. Bush has (fortunately, to
general skepticism and ridicule, but still receiving support from the
genuinely fascist-prone right) pronounced a war against an
“Islamofascism” as threatening and coherent as Hitler’s fascism or
Marxism-Leninism. The conflation of Nazism and communism, stupid
enough, has been around for ages. The conflation of these two plus
Syrian Baathism, Iranian mullocracy, Hizbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda and
anything especially in the Muslim world Bush doesn’t like is a real
leap. It is as though the liars in power want to test just how
ignorant people can be, how deeply their fears bigotries and faith in
an apocalyptic future can be exploited as they proceed with their
agenda.

I’d rather bank on the 60% to wise up
further, and act upon their knowledge (and disillusionment) to thwart
that agenda, including any military strike against Iran. World Can’t
Wait has called for nationwide actions against the Bush regime on
October 5. A strong showing of opposition to the regime -- reflecting
and spreading, in the face of all the lies, truth about the recent
past and present -- could help transform the political climate.

Gary Leupp
is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative
Religion, at Tufts University and author of numerous works on Japanese
history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.